Posted July 28, 2010 at 7:57 pm by Severed Head
Letter to Jake about playing music
Awesome thing of the week, Comics, Conspiracies, Dreams, Fun, Fun Facts, Grammar, Guitar, Life, Limb, Lists, Music, Philosophy, Pissed off rants, Plane, Propaganda, Robots, Snakes, Time Paradox, Uncategorized, Website
Posted July 25, 2009 at 11:58 pm by Severed Head
I think maybe we should just start booking gigs here in Phoenix. I will find some that you and I can both make in terms of dates. If we get booked, I’ll really quickly record some shit and send it to you, and we’ll basically jam some songs off of that at the show since we won’t really have time to rehearse.
Just to get the ball rolling and play some fun shows. What do you think?
Harrison’s Highly Critical, Judgemental, Elitist Rants Presents: Drugs, Alcohol, Religion, etc.
Awesome thing of the week, Conspiracies, Dreams, Guitar, Life, Lifelist, Limb, Music, Philosophy, Pissed off rants
Posted May 31, 2009 at 8:55 pm by Severed Head
First of all, let me get this out of the way if any of you are wondering. People are all fucking stupid.
There.
You know why kids who go to Catholic school are fucked up? It’s because they’re raised by people who make certain behaviors taboo. Drinking or drugs or candy or video games or sex or what the fuck ever. Simply, when people are repressed, socially, politically, or otherwise, they end up lashing out, eventually. People who don’t drink who suddenly start drinking do stupid fucking shit and burst out and get drunk. Nearly everyone does. I personally RARELY hear of anyone who starts off drinking light and knowing his or her limit. No, they start off pushing their limit. (This applies to driving too. There’s a lot of ass holes out there slamming on the accelerator to make it to a fucking red light. If this isn’t a perfect metaphor for the folly of this American society, I don’t know what is) And I’m not saying people shouldn’t drink, but they need to practice restraint. Moderation is the key to ANYTHING being good. Our society emphasizes two extremes: instant gratification, and this religious bullshit of nearly everything enjoyable is related to sin.
But here’s why getting drunk is stupid. It’s one thing to drink to get a buzz to relax a bit and get out of your head. It’s another to kill brain cells and act out and deal with your problems, emotionally or socially, with a bottle. People call it social lubrication for a reason. But once you start depending on that for social interactions, you’re fucking pathetic. Plus, let’s be honest. 90% of being drunk is acting like you’re drunk. Alcohol can affect your system, but only as fucking much as you let it. Not only are YOU the one choosing to imbibe more alcohol once you’ve already caught a buzz, YOU are the one deciding to act like a fucking idiot at a party to get attention. And the thing that bothers me most? People embrace this behavior. Everyone does. People enjoy a drunk. At this age at least. Once you get older? Not quite as much. Want to know why? Because it’s fucking pathetic.
Now, I’m all for the idea that life is about your interactions at people and that, while we’re here in our short lives, we should enjoy it, but personally, the large majority of people I know drink in order to be someone else. They’re almost repressing an alternate identity, and then when they drink, letting that personality come out to become the drunk version of themselves where it’s acceptable to act on impulse and do stupid things.
Largely, drinking is self-destructive. So are drugs and any other form of acting out. Sex with strangers or people you just met. etc. This doesn’t seem apparent to a lot of people. This is because, going back to earlier, our society emphasizes this instant gratification bullshit. AND YOU ALL GIVE INTO IT. There are a few good ones out there, but let’s be honest, THIS BASIC PRINCIPLE IS HOW OUR COUNTRY JUST GOT FUCKING FUCKED. People don’t want to put in the goddamn hard work to make money these days, and some ass holes making money on buying and selling stocks made some decisions that fucked us, the general public. I don’t want to get political here, because I don’t think it’s a political issue. Stupid people got into too much debt, putting trust into companies who are supposed to keep one’s money safe, but DIDN’T because they were too busy fucking around trying to make a quick buck. And I mean. I can understand where these bankers and stock traders who fucked our shit up are coming from. They don’t want to work hard. They want to take the quick, easy option, and make lots of money. Nearly everyone who comes into my store wants a new condition book for a used price. Everyone wants to be on the winning end of a good deal, yes? But when it comes down to taking the easy option over the hard option, the easy option almost always wins. The hard option might take a bit longer to pay off, but that’s not what we want. Well, let me tell you this, kiddies. If you keep taking those easy options, you’re going to fail, and you’re going to be pathetic. Andrew W.K., not exactly a great philosopher, someone who preaches partying and instant gratification, outside of his music, does have a really great idea. I remember watching an episode of his show where he said “Nothing easy is ever good, and nothing good is ever easy.” I don’t like maxims that use “nothing” and “ever”, but looking at my life and everyone’s around me lately, it has never seemed more true than right now.
Adam Carolla has a podcast, and with nearly every guest that comes on, Adam asks “What’s your story? How did you get to be successful?” You know many of them said shit like “Well, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and I got lucky?” NONE OF THEM. IT TAKES FUCKING BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS TO GET TO ANYWHERE REMOTELY RESEMBLING THE TOP. Do you think it’s any coincidence that Brian May and Paul Gilbert, arguably two of the greatest and most successful guitarists, who get to do whatever musical projects they like without worry for money or approval from critics, don’t do drugs or drink heavily? IT’S NOT. And I want to be at that level, personally. I’d love to have complete artistic freedom, playing music with my idols, or able to play with any musician I want. As my old chemistry teacher said, it’s the American dream to aspire to mediocrity. Well, I say: FUCK THAT SHIT. I’m not going to settle. I’m sticking to my fucking morals and my beliefs and my work ethic, except that instead of just sticking with that stuff, I’m going to keep making it fucking better. A lot of you know that I’ve worked harder and fucking harder each year for my life. I’m doing two majors at college, and two of the hardest fucking majors, I might add, and I’m doing it in just a bit more than 4 years. I’m not going to sit on for 5 years of college and hope everything works out, I’m fucking making it work out.
And you think Paul Gilbert and Brian May and all these great musicians are naturally that way? Of course not. I read this wonderful article by my guitar instructor talking about some of the great musicians of all time, the classical composers. Do you think they just got more inspired than everyone else, and that’s why they’re so good? No. They put hours and fucking hours into their craft. They worked their goddamn asses off to get to a level of musicianship some of us can hardly comprehend. This shit takes fucking time and hard work. And now their music is still being played today. More than half the shit on the radio is never going to be heard from again 100 years from now, but people are going to keep listening to and playing Bach forever.
And let me just add, by the way, that most of you people out there who really need the help don’t fucking accept it. My beliefs and my ideas about alcohol and drugs go against nearly EVERYONE’s I know, and I hardly exaggerate. I have a few friends and a wonderful girlfriend who agree with me and who curtail these stupid behaviors, but I must emphasize how few these people are. And it’s hard. It’s hard for me to maintain certain friendships and seeing them go down this road and not giving into the ease of mediocrity. It’s fucking hard as well. So why do I do continue to be such a stubborn ass hole when it comes to drugs and alcohol or being lazy? Because, like Andrew says, nothing good is ever easy and nothing easy is ever good.
Posted April 8, 2009 at 11:06 am by Severed Head
I want to become a knight. It would be awesome. Apparently, knighthood is most often appointed to “High Court judges and senior civil servants.” How fucking great would that be?
Really great, that’s how much.
Posted October 17, 2008 at 2:07 pm by Crumb Bandit
The only person in here is the robotic bar-tender who methodically wipes the bar down every 15 minutes. The dim green and brown lights, empty piano bench, are both boring and sterile.
Robot says: ” take a seat mister, you’re not from around here, whats the news on the out side?”
I say :” I came here to find news. The government has sealed off all truthful communications of the city.”
Robot :” Capitalism strangled us, and squeezed our eyes out like beans out of edemame, fed us mush and called it raspberries”
I : ” Your quaint imagery makes me hungry”
Robot : “I’m programmed to make a nice steak, sir”
I : “give me two, and a nice dark German beer. Make that, a nice dark haired German woman.”
Posted August 4, 2008 at 8:08 pm by Crumb Bandit
Whats up with people and working shitty manual labor jobs!? Because I am uncreative, it seems easiest for me to make a quick buck and work at Circle k. I know I could get paying gigs playing or teaching drums, but those seem to be too hard for me to find right now. So I bust ass and feed the Mexicans who come in to buy beer as their only escape from the work-a-day world. Money is a sad trap. We bust our ass just to get not enough of it and be depressed in the end. Money is totally a carrot designed for dangling in front of our treadmills by some evil being. I can’t wait to have a bachelors in music, so I can try to get some school teacher job or what ever, and leave the retail world and all the depressing uninspired people that roll around in muck just to get a buck. I might go back to retail someday, but I want a couple of paid summers off first with teachers salary at least, and I better be the manager of something if that does happen.
Like a gun and liquor store. I would hang a mini-gun behind the counter right behind me. And always be wearing guns on my person. What an exciting job! My wife could sell the armour!!! JUST THINK!!! We could shoot robbers on the spot, host local gun shows and shootouts, yadda yadda! Great way to retire up in the Styx.
But I really want to travel around soon, just in case something happens and I get stuck in teh USAZORZ or atomic bombz start dropping and we live in vaults for 50 years, like fallout 2.
<3 Jake
Posted July 28, 2008 at 2:07 pm by Crumb Bandit
My cement house cube is an echo chamber. It would sound great miked live, but It is too loud to practice in, because it seems the echoes are what leak through the windows and doors and such.
I need Ideas on how to hang or Prop tapestries and/or thick rugs on the walls. By the way, I think it is near impossible to hang stuff on my wall for one of two reasons.
1. The walls are probably cement.
2. I am (maybe?) not allowed to put holes in the wall due to my landlord.
<3 CB
Posted July 27, 2008 at 10:52 pm by Crumb Bandit
Mansinthe. Guess who its named after! Oh you already know about it? Did you know absinthe is probably legal now?? SWEET!
Awesome thing of the week, Dreams
Posted May 6, 2008 at 10:59 pm by Crumb Bandit
Deadline for music video due may 30. If DMI doesn’t enter this, I will die. Could be in a 100 years, but I will. Hurry up and write our number 1 hit plz thx.
Dreams, Fun Facts, Time Paradox
Posted May 1, 2008 at 11:43 am by Crumb Bandit
Now I know you guys don’t like Republicans, but this one caught my eye. Mit Romney.
“In 2004, Governor Romney established the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship Program to reward the top 25 percent of Massachusetts high school students with a four-year, tuition-free scholarship to any Massachusetts public university or college.” – Mit Romney’s website.
Among other cool things his website says he did, he closed a huge budget gap of 3 billion dollars that he inherited when he became governor of Massachusetts.
Think we need a black racist for a president? How bout a guy who might actually do something with the problems of our future??
- Jake Hintze